‘Ban on caning in order; it makes students timid’ – GNECC

The Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition (GNECC), believes using the cane on students as a correctional measure will rather frighten and deprive them of the courage and confidence needed for academic work.

Kofi Asare, Chairman of GNECC maintains that canning defeats one’s purpose of being in school thereby raising timid, non-assertive individuals

His comments come at a time when Ghanaians, as well as stakeholders in the education sector, are divided over an order by the Ghana Education Service (GES) that bans caning in primary and secondary schools.

The GES argued that “apart from the physical pain corporal punishment inflicts on children, this approach also causes significant emotional damage.

Kofi Asare, who spoke on The Point of View on CITI TV on Wednesday, backed the directive, saying that caning will prevent the raising of the right kind of students since it affects their retentive ability.

“One of the factors that does not encourage retention in school is because the school environment is not safe for children.  If a teacher applies the ‘whip’ because he or she is not happy with a student’s output, then the classroom becomes unattractive to the child. Punishing students physically, does not make them assertive and critical thinkers; it makes them timid and unable to participate in certain subjects that are traditionally difficult”.

Caning is a form of assault

Moreso, Kofi Asare condemned the practice whereby teachers punish students with the cane describing it as a deliberate attempt to cause physical  harm.

“In public schools, you will realise that the level of assertiveness, the level to which a student could ask questions or engage the teacher is very limited because the teacher is known to be someone who will unleash physical violence on the student in the name of punishment which is actually assault. The objective of caning is not to reform but to repress.”

Ban on caning will break down discipline in schools – Methodist Bishop warns

Ghana risks a total breakdown of discipline in schools and within the larger Ghanaian society, if the Ghana Education Service, GES, continues to relax caning, otherwise known as corporal punishment in schools.

That’s according to Rt. Rev. Samuel K. Osabutey, Diocesan Bishop of Accra, Methodist Church, Ghana.

Rt. Rev. Samuel Osabutey said placing a total ban on caning will be counterproductive, and will have dire consequences on general discipline among students.

“Change for the sake of change does not do anybody any good. I don’t think that in those days when the people were being caned, they were being abused; because there were rules and regulations within which people had to be caned; and the GES must be careful and not just give a blanket instruction. I don’t know what pertains now, but in an older document for teachers when teachers used to cane, there were specific rules on caning; the caning was commensurate to the offense.”

The Methodist Bishop warned Ghanaians not to copy wrongly the way children are brought up in so-called developed countries and given excessive freedoms, which have in most cases become detrimental to those societies.

“Children are getting away with a lot of things in the schools in the name of child abuse; and people are talking about human rights. In other jurisdictions like the US and elsewhere where we find out that children have been given the freedom even to carry guns and things like that; and they’re able to challenge their parents and things like that; it’s a foolish behaviour pattern which we have copied with the excuse of freedom of speech; freedom of liberty for the student; the student must not be coerced and all that…”

By: Nii Larte Lartey | citinewsroom.com |Ghana | [email protected]

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Source: citifmonline.com